An anecdote about sharing...

I really believe that the personal benefit that we receive from sharing knowledge is massive. Sharing knowledge isn't just a feel good thing that only benefits the person you share the knowledge with. I believe it brings tangible benefits to the person sharing. Not ever time, but overall I believe that there is a large net benefit.

Don't get me wrong. If you share knowledge but the person you shared it with had to pull it out of you like a dentist working on a tough wisdom tooth then you won't receive any benefit from it. The experience will suck for everyone involved.

Which brings me to this week. This week, Stormwater Australia published an article of mine in their monthly members bulletin. A few days later, a young engineer from Perth (Gelareh Khakbaz) emailed me with kind things to say about the article. Now I could have just responded with a polite thank you email, but something about the email made me think that I could bring some value if we had a quick chat over Skype.

So yesterday morning we caught up on Skype. I believe that I bought value to that conversation, but that's not the point of this story (trust me, I'm really concerned about writing that last sentence because I know it looks like I'm bragging). The point of this story is that I got heaps of value from the conversation as well. I have a couple of new ideas for Ideanthro episodes (you'll see those at some point in the future) as well as the idea for this little story. It's a win-win outcome because we shared.